Home Depot’s Perception Hits Two-Year Low On Data Breach Concerns

Home Depot’s consumer perception just reached a two-year low after confirming last Monday that customers who used credit cards at its North American stores in the past six months may be impacted by a data breach.

YouGov BrandIndex measured Home Depot with its Buzz score, which asks respondents "If you've heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?" Buzz score can range from 100 to -100, with a zero score equaling positive and negative feedback. All measurements are for adults 18 and over.

The day after word first leaked out about possible breach on September 4th, Home Depot’s Buzz score was 15. The chain’s scores since then have been fairly volatile. Later in the week, Home Depot announced that there had been a breach that “may” impact its credit card customers from the past six months, without going into further details. The news seems to have been enough to push Buzz down to 8, its lowest mark since reaching a 5 score in September 2012.

By comparison, Target’s end of December data breach took six days to drop from a score of 20 on December 15th, when the news broke, to -17, a 37 point drop. Two days later, they reached -29.